Future raw materials

We continue to work towards increasing the availability of raw materials, while also developing technologies to diversify our current portfolio with new scalable raw materials.

Short to mid term: increasing the availability of waste and residues and novel vegetable oils

We are exploring ways to increase the availability of emerging, even lower-quality waste and residue raw materials, such as crude acid oils. We are also exploring novel vegetable oils produced with regenerative agricultural practices.

Lower-quality waste and residues

Neste’s renewable raw material strategy focuses on developing new raw material sources while growing our existing portfolio with new raw materials.

In addition to expanding the sourcing volumes of the waste and residues we already have in our renewable raw material portfolio, we are working on diversifying our portfolio with emerging, even lower-quality wastes and residues (including raw materials from EU RED Annex IX A list) and developing our pretreatment capacity to enable their use.

These raw materials include, for example:

Acid oils: Free fatty acids derived from refining processes of a variety of vegetable oils, for example. Neste is currently developing a supply of acid oils originating from the vegetable oil refining processes, such as refining of soybean oil.

Advanced pretreatment processes and the use of the proprietary NEXBTL technology make it possible for Neste to convert low-quality raw materials like crude acid oils into high-quality renewable products, the use of these materials on a global scale requires substantial investment in additional research and development.

Did you know?

Many underdeveloped raw material pools exist but face challenges both inside their supply chains (such as collection, transport, and refining) as well as outside (such as sustainability regulations). In other words, unlocking the potential of additional renewable raw materials is a task that demands as much ingenuity as it does urgency. Collaborative effort is key; more than anything else, scaling up the use of renewable raw materials requires highly effective and ambitious partnerships.

Novel vegetable oils from regenerative agricultural practices

Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil health.

Regenerative farming practices aim to trap carbon in healthier soils, promote biodiversity and reduce emissions from agriculture, while increasing farm productivity.

As part of our efforts to develop new sources of renewable raw materials, Neste is exploring the potential of regenerative agricultural concepts to produce additional biomass. Neste focuses on concepts, such as intermediate cropping, which do not create additional demand for agricultural land.

We have been involved in over 60 field studies across the globe, working together with farmers, other value chain partners and research institutions. We have been studying a variety of crops and regenerative agriculture management practices, for both annuals and perennials, to identify most promising concepts for scale-up.

Did you know?

Regenerative agriculture refers to methods that agricultural producers can use to protect or restore the viability of land and soil, as well as the ecosystems they are a part of. With soil conservation at their center, regenerative practices consider not only short-term crop yields, but long-term resilience of ecosystems, enhancing both the environmental and economic dimensions of agriculture.

The benefits of regenerative practices often extend further than the land itself. They have the potential to also reduce GHG emissions and unlock new opportunities in agricultural value chains. Regenerative practices such as cultivating on degraded lands or planting intermediate crops may also be a way to produce additional, new volumes of protein together with bio-based renewable raw materials.

Long term: exploring new raw materials and developing technologies to diversify our raw material portfolio further

Our long-term raw material development focuses on, for example, the following scalable raw materials and technologies enabling their use:

Lignocellulose

We believe that lignocellulosic waste and residues from existing forestry and agricultural production can make an important contribution as a new scalable pool of raw material enabling additional volumes of renewable fuels and materials to be produced.

Neste has been active in studying lignocellulosics as a potential raw material as well as lignocellulose conversion technologies for over a decade.
Vast amounts of waste and residues from existing forest industry and agricultural production remain underutilized and could be leveraged as valuable renewable raw materials.
The structural parts of plants, including trees, are made of a complex mixture of carbohydrate polymers, called lignocellulose. These are the most abundant natural polymers found on earth. These polymers, cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose as well as the huge variety of extracts in plants, offer excellent replacement for fossil raw materials for making fuels, chemicals and materials.

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Did you know?

Forestry waste and residues are generated in harvesting operations (e.g. treetops and branches, pre-commercial thinnings). Forest industry residues, on the other hand, are streams generated in forest industry processing (e.g. bark and sawdust), while recycled wood streams are end-of-life materials e.g. from construction wood.

Renewable hydrogen

The transition to a renewable (also known as “green”) hydrogen economy is just getting started. Neste is evaluating possibilities to replace fossil-based hydrogen with renewable hydrogen in its production.

Hydrogen is used in large quantities in many industries, e.g. oil refineries to process fuels. A common way to produce hydrogen has been to produce it from natural gas and water in high temperatures, which leads to carbon dioxide emissions.
Renewable hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, where hydrogen is processed from water using renewable electricity, such as wind or solar, to split water molecules.
Currently, around 95% of all hydrogen is made of fossil natural gas, which leads to significant GHG emissions. Renewable hydrogen holds a massive potential to help meet our rising energy demand.

Did you know?

Grey hydrogen = produced from fossil fuels, usually natural gas.

Renewable (also known as “green”) hydrogen = hydrogen produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity.

Blue hydrogen = grey hydrogen, but CO2 is captured and then stored.

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